Mob violence has become a serious concern, and the youth are worried about the trend. A recent survey conducted by the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) revealed that 71.5% of youth in Bangladesh said mob violence is steadily increasing across the country and significantly affecting the daily lives of young people.
Since Bangladesh currently enjoys demographic dividend, the voices of the youth are of paramount importance. It is also instrumental for policymakers to respond, although Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (Retd) Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury recently warned everyone against any mob violence in the country. Rights activists have condemned the assault and humiliation inflicted on the former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) KM Nurul Huda a few weeks ago.
A mob allegedly raided the home of the former CEC at Uttara in Dhaka city on June 22. The police detained Huda from his home, hours after the BNP had filed a case against ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, three former chief election commissioners, and 20 others for their roles in three controversial national elections held in 2014, 2018, and 2024.
Video footage that went viral on social media showed a mob surrounding the former CEC at Uttara and putting a “garland of shoes” around his neck in the presence of police. Such acts certainly constitute a gross violation of rights enshrined in the constitution of Bangladesh.
Apart from the former CEC incidents, there were at least two incidents of mob violence which also came out in the media recently. There was mob violence that caused the death of three members of a family in Comilla. According to media reports, a woman, along with her son and daughter, was beaten to death at Muradnagar, Comilla, on July 3, allegedly for their involvement in drug dealing. In a separate incident, a worker in a Gazipur factory was tied up with a rope and beaten to death on allegations of theft on June 30.
“To enjoy the protection of the law, and to be treated by law, and only by law, is the inalienable right of every citizen, wherever he may be, and of every other person for the time being within Bangladesh, and in particular no action detrimental to the life, liberty, body, reputation or property of any person shall be taken except by law” as ascribed in Article 31 of the Constitution. The rights of the accused have been elaborated further in Article 35: “Every person accused of a criminal offence shall have the right to a speedy and public trial by an independent and impartial Court or tribunal established by law.”
Acts orchestrated by mobs are a gross violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
However, subsequent years of autocratic rule and poor governance have created a deficit of public trust. There were serious crimes and violations of rights orchestrated with the active support of the previous regime.
Amnesty International South Asia, following the publication of an investigative report by the BBC, has called on the interim government to consider referring all incidents of human rights violations that occurred between July 1 and August 15 of last year, to the International Criminal Court (ICC) under Article 14 of the Rome Statute.
The report analyzed a leaked audio clip, which allegedly indicates that former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered the use of live ammunition to suppress protests. The statement referenced a United Nations fact-finding report published in February 2025, which claimed that as many as 1,400 people may have been killed during the protests.
The UN Human Rights Office revealed gross human rights violations by actors affiliated with Bangladesh’s former Government and security services.
Security and intelligence services, alongside violent elements associated with the Awami League, systematically engaged in a range of serious human rights violations during last year’s student-led protests.
It also documented troubling instances of retaliatory killings and other serious revenge violence targeting Awami League officials and supporters, police, and media, as the former government started to lose control of the country.
In The Idea of Justice, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen embarks on a journey to uncover the true meaning of justice. He begins by critiquing traditional approaches that focus solely on achieving a perfectly just society or determining the ideal set of rules and principles. Instead, Sen argues that justice should be understood as a process rather than an end goal, emphasizing the importance of public reasoning and democratic deliberation in the pursuit of justice.
Democratic deliberation is critical not only in realizing the dreams of the youth, but for the pursuit of justice too.
Oli Md Abdullah Chowdhury is a human rights worker.